Croydon council housing scheme beats bookies' odds of 6/1 to win the 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize

Lion Green Road, a 157-home council development built on a former car park in Coulsdon, south London, has been named Britain's best new building, beating two Cambridge University schemes that were joint 2/1 favourites. Architect Mary Duggan doubled the council's original brief of 80 homes to deliver 157 across five distinctive 13-sided blocks for Croydon Council, mixing socially rented and privately owned homes on a steeply sloping site. Duggan called the win 'extraordinary, unexpected and humbling', her first Stirling shortlisting.

The scheme was the bookies' rank outsider at 6/1, with Haworth Tompkins' Pembroke College Cambridge expansion the favourite to win.

RIBA president Chris Williamson said Lion Green Road proves 'density can be achieved without compromising the quality of the places we create.'

Only once before has a council housing project won the Stirling Prize — Goldsmith Street in Norwich in 2019.